Outlook for iOS gets deeper Office document integration

Open, edit, save and send in one fell swoop

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Microsoft has delivered an update to its Office for iOS apps that brings greater integration between Outlook and the three key elements of the productivity suite.

From now onwards any documents sent to an email address using the Outlook for iOS app will open up inside Word, PowerPoint or Excel, as long as the individual apps are installed on the device in question.

It's more clever than just that though and once you have finished editing the document, you can click 'Back' and it will automatically save the changes to the file before readying it to be forwarded for further collaboration. If the Office apps aren't installed, however, it will still be possible to use the built-in viewer inside Outlook for iOS.

Sending attachments using Outlook for iOS has been made more simple through a the addition of a dedicated 'Send with Outlook' option that is now available in the 'Share' menu inside each app. This will bring up Outlook's 'Compose New Email' window and from there on in it's as easy as simply touching 'Send'.

Android coming soon

The update will be a particular boon to organisations that use Office for iOS to work on documents together and makes the action an almost seamless one as before it was only really available when using cloud-based document services.

Android will be getting the same functionality "in the next couple of months" and Microsoft is also working on updating Outlook for iOS so that it connects to OneDrive for Business later on this year.